


take me higher

by empathise



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 23:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17334752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empathise/pseuds/empathise
Summary: Jaehyun sees all sorts of things during his job as a window cleaner, but one time, he sees something he's not quite supposed to.





	take me higher

**Author's Note:**

  * For [negi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/negi/gifts).



It’s hard not to look down.

Jaehyun takes a deep breath, steadying himself on the platform, and then he leans forward to squeegee the surface of the first window clean. It makes the most annoying squeaking noises ever, high-pitched and incessant, and Jaehyun grits his teeth and turns his music up higher.

It’s his first day cleaning windows, scrubbing the grime and filth off of Seoul’s tallest high-rises, and Jaehyun’s never been more thankful that he doesn’t have a fear of heights. The pay is decent, and he’s only going to be doing this for the summer to pay the bills before he goes back to work, so. Whatever. He doesn’t mind this kind of work as long as he’s getting paid good money to stand on a platform and wipe windows all day.

So, with _Emergency Room_ blasting in his ears, he gets to work.

 

 

If Jaehyun’s being completely honest, he never saw himself doing this kind of work. He’d gone to college for marketing, and he was certain he’d find himself a job at a firm, where he’d ascend the ranks and become the youngest ever to become CEO. That didn’t happen. Instead, what he got was a messy breakup late in his last year of college and rejections from all the companies he applied to. Jaehyun’s over it, though. He took a few years off to find himself and to DJ at a local radio show, and now that he has just two months left before he can go back to marketing full-time, he’s completely fine with it.

They’re all apartments, beautiful ones that belong to people Jaehyun’s only ever seen on TV. Maybe someday that can be him. He’s thinking about plush ergonomic chairs and leather padfolios with his name on them, over and over again as he works his way down the high-rise, taking his time to see what kinds of things are going on inside. There’s even an apartment on the thirty-fourth floor Jaehyun’s sure belongs to one of his favorite actresses ever, and she _waves_ at him when she sees him through the slight cracks in the curtains.

He’s on the twenty-first floor when he notices that the curtains and windows on this entire floor are wide open, giving him an unobstructed view of the apartment inside. It’s a sparsely furnished space, large rooms and high ceilings, and just the bare minimum of furniture lying around. Jaehyun can’t make out any personal effects, none whatsoever, and he almost feels bad for the owner.

It looks lonely.

And then someone waltzes into the room, naked save for a towel slung low over his hips, and he’s dancing to a song that’s all in his head, swaying to some imaginary beat, and Jaehyun can’t look away.

He must make some kind of noise, though, because the man turns, all wide eyes and shock frozen on his face, and Jaehyun instinctively reaches for the railings, the platform shaking underneath him, before he pitches forward into the apartment.

Jaehyun closes his eyes against the cold marble tiling and hopes that before the man can get to him and ask him what the hell he’s doing, a meteorite can come slamming into the earth and end civilization so he’ll never have to face the consequences of his actions. That, predictably, doesn’t happen, and Jaehyun hears the footfalls before they stop right in front of him.

“Jaehyun?”

The voice is soft, quiet. Jaehyun exhales, and he picks himself up off of the ground, already feeling his ears flush in embarrassment.

“Hello, Doyoung. It’s nice to see you again.”

 

 

Rewind.

Jaehyun met Doyoung back in their second year of school, back when Doyoung was still an awkward gangly mass of limbs and Jaehyun was much the same. They dated for a year, a relationship that culminated in Doyoung storming out of Jaehyun’s apartment one summer night and promptly changing his profile picture on Kakaotalk to something that wasn’t one of the many selcas Jaehyun had taken of them together. It wouldn’t have been much of a problem at all, save for one simple fact:

Doyoung was the younger son of the man who owned the company Jaehyun had gotten his only job offer from.

And that was it.

 

 

“What are you doing here?” Doyoung’s smile looks forced, awkward, like someone’s pulling the edges of his lips upward.

“Oh, you know.” Jaehyun picks up his discarded squeegee and holds it up. “The usual.”

“The usual?” Doyoung’s eyebrows can go almost the entire way up to his hairline. It was funny, before. “Why aren’t you working with my dad? Why are you… Cleaning windows?”

Jaehyun’s heart twists. So Doyoung didn’t know. (Didn’t know, or didn’t bother to find out?)

“Because, um. After we broke up, HR rescinded the offer. So I just took some time off and I’m starting somewhere else this fall.”

Doyoung never got angry when he was with Jaehyun. He got annoyed a lot, which was par for the course when dealing with him, but never angry. He’s angry now— Jaehyun can tell by the way his eyebrows furrow and his mouth pinches into a tight line, and he thinks that it’s just so _fitting_ for Doyoung, who was always so stubborn about following the rules and doing things properly and meting out justice, to be angry on his behalf.

“That’s fucked up,” Doyoung says plainly, and he’s already padding over to the couch to grab his phone. Jaehyun suddenly feels so, so tired.

“Don’t,” Jaehyun says. “Water under the bridge. Let it go, Doyoung.”

“No!” Doyoung rounds on him, his phone clutched in a hand, the other hand tugging at the towel wrapped around his waist. “You can’t stop letting people walk all over you, this is why—” Doyoung cuts himself off, going silent.

“This is why what?” Jaehyun asks, and he can feel his ears start to burn. “What?”

“Nothing, just.” Doyoung sighs. “Shit, I’m so sorry. That’s seriously fucked up, let me just. I don’t know. Let me make it up to you.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Don’t be stupid, Jaehyun.”

“I’m not being stupid, stop treating me like a kid.” Doyoung’s always treated him like this, but honestly, it’s hard to be angry at someone who’s half naked and wrapped in a fluffy white towel. “Make it up to me by buying me dinner.”

Doyoung’s eyebrows meet his hairline again. “I’m offering you a job, and you want me to buy you _dinner_?”

“I already have a job, and who says I want just any regular dinner?” There are sixty-three Michelin-starred restaurants in Gangnam, and of those— “There’s only one place here with three Michelin stars. Take me there.”

“Their waitlist is two months long, Jaehyun, we can’t just waltz in.”

“I’m sure you can swing something,” Jaehyun replies, cheeky in the way that he knows gets his dimples to really pop. “Consider this making it up to me.”

Doyoung looks taken aback. He stares at Jaehyun for a few seconds before he laughs, his face crumpling up. “God, I can’t believe you. I can’t believe you just. Fell into my apartment while _window cleaning_ , and now you want me to buy you dinner.”

“You offered. And it’s literally the least you could do.”

“I guess it is.” Doyoung smiles at him. Jaehyun picks up his squeegee, and they walk to the window together. Jaehyun holds onto Doyoung’s shoulder as he hefts himself out of the window and onto the platform, and he thinks that maybe this would’ve been romantic. It’d be easy to lean in to kiss Doyoung, and shit, he can’t tell if he’s just terrified out of his mind by standing up here, suspended over twenty floors of nothingness, or if he’s really starting to fall for Doyoung again.

“Your info’s still the same?” Doyoung asks, and Jaehyun nods. “Good. I’ll text you later tonight when I’m, uh. Wearing clothes. And when you’re off work.”

“Yeah.”

“It really was good seeing you again, Jaehyun. Even if you kinda just fell into my apartment.”

“Good seeing you too, Doyoung. Let’s catch up later.”

They stay like that, Doyoung with his hands braced on the windowsill and Jaehyun standing just outside, and Doyoung reaches out, and for a second, Jaehyun thinks he’s going to push him off. Instead, he feels Doyoung’s fingers on his cheek.

“You’re so cold, Jaehyun. Dress more warmly next time.” There it is, Doyoung’s kindness that comes and goes as it wants. Jaehyun can’t breathe.

“Maybe you should take your own advice and stop dancing half-naked with your windows open in case anyone falls in.”

Doyoung flushes. “I didn’t realize you saw that.”

“I saw everything,” Jaehyun says solemnly. “So you better get me that table tonight or else.”

“I’ll make sure of it.” Doyoung looks at him then, really _looks_ at him the way he hasn’t in a while, and he pats Jaehyun’s cheek. “See you tonight, Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun puts his hand over Doyoung’s. “See you later, Doyoung.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi there! i hope you enjoyed this little snippet, even if i took some extremely creative liberties with the prompt. i'm really really sorry i couldn't give you more of what deserved 50k of slowburn but i hope it was alright anyway T_T please imagine the next 48.5k of dojae as exes who learn to become friends again, and then tentative boyfriends, and then lovers <3


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